


In the Name of the Warrior

by Emjayelle



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Post 8.04, i have to, i love them, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 07:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18773965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjayelle/pseuds/Emjayelle
Summary: It hurt that he didn’t think she would come after him. It made her angry that he thought he had wounded her beyond moving, beyond fighting. That he thought this, of all things, would be the first fight she would back down from.Brienne rides after Jaime.





	In the Name of the Warrior

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing this pairing! Woo! What a time to be alive. I had managed to be a casual fan of the show for seven whole seasons, but GoT got me in the end and then did me dirty three episodes in so now I have to Fix Things. 
> 
> It's not a true fix-it where everything is nice again (I wish!), but it's on its way there. Jaime Lannister is an idiot sandwich (and I love him). 
> 
> Thanks to A. L. and E. for their support and for geeking out and raging out with me. And for going over the fic for me as well. They're the real MVPs. <33

One breath. Two breaths. And then she was moving. Out of the courtyard and into her room. Out of her robe and into her clothes. She glanced at her armour, decided against putting it on—there was no time—strapped her sword on, knife in belt, warm cloak over her shoulders, and then she was out again. Into the courtyard, onto her horse, into the cold.

Winterfell disappeared at her back and the night fell on her like an axe, dark and heavy. The road was a barely darker line under the small crescent moon and stars, more sound under her horse’s hooves than shape for her eyes. 

She rode fast, bent over her horse’s neck, but in her mind, she hadn’t moved from Winterfell’s courtyard where she still stood in the cold, in her robe, sobbing. She saw herself like an outsider watching from afar, a tall beast of a woman alone in the dark, with a band around her ribs that squeezed and squeezed, and a heart trying to escape her own chest like it could escape the pain it was feeling. She could feel the heat of Jaime’s skin on her fingers still, of his mouth on hers, of his body moving above and under her. Icy wind whipped at her face and made her eyes cry, crept under her cloak and into her clothes and still she could feel it. Brienne had never felt warmth like it.

She almost missed him, only caught a glint of metal out of the corner of her eye, struck dully in moonlight. He must have stopped and hid in the darkness of the trees when he heard a horse coming hard from behind him. She pulled on the reins and turned her horse around, unsheathing her sword.

“Come out,” she said, firm. It was only when she heard the anger in her voice that she realized how much it filled her, sharp and cutting.

For a long moment the only sounds were her horse’s puffy breathing and her own and then she heard,

“Brienne?”

She truly ought to throw him off his horse and strike him in the face. 

Because she was in that courtyard, alone and humiliated, mocked and thrown away like a joke, with no Renly Baratheon to dance with her and make everything right again, and _he_ had done this to her. And yet her treacherous heart gave a kick as soon as he came into view, a dark silhouette flatly limned in moonlight. It always did every time she saw him. Every time. Even after days and nights of touching him, finally, of having him in her arms. Even now. 

“Who did you think it would be?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, turning his head into the shadows so all she could see was the movement of his arm as he ran his hand through his hair. “A guard from Winterfell. Maybe Bronn having changed his mind. Is the sword really necessary?”

It hurt that he didn’t think she would come after him. It made her angry that he thought he had wounded her beyond moving, beyond fighting. That he thought this, of all things, would be the first fight she would back down from. 

“Yes,” she answered through her teeth. “I’m considering stabbing you with it.”

He sighed and moved his horse closer, as if he didn’t believe her. Close enough that she could see his face, lined and older than when they first met, tired and sad. She gritted her teeth together, and hit his chest with the flat of her sword.

“Let me go, Brienne,” he said, pushing the blade away with his metal hand. She hit him again, harder. He looked down at his chest then at her face, eyes wide and questioning. He’d given her that look over the years and for a long time she hadn’t known what to do with it. What the little thrill in her stomach meant. She did now, and it made her angrier. 

“If you want to go, you’ll have to fight me.”

She would, she thought. She would fight him if she had to. She had kept her vow to Lady Catelyn, but Lady Catelyn had died. She had lost Arya once. She had walked away from Lady Sansa and she had faced horrors Brienne could have maybe saved her from. She wasn’t going to make it so easy for him to leave her behind to face certain death. She straightened her back and glared even as another part of her wanted to yell at him to go then, just go! But she had ridden after him into the dark and now she had to take her stand. 

“Brienne—“ he started a again.

“No,” she said. “Listen to me carefully, Jaime Lannister. You are a good man, and—“

“Did you not hear what I said earlier?” He didn’t move but the rise in his voice made his horse twitch, hooves clacking against the rocks in the road and the hard-packed dirt. “Are you so stubborn that you can’t see—“

“Very well then,” she said louder, tightening her hand on her reins to keep her own horse still. “You could be. You could be a good man. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You have done good things, even if you’ve done bad ones too. Even if you’ve done more bad than good. You’ve kept your vow to Lady Catelyn and Sansa Stark is alive today because of it. You’ve kept your vow to fight for the living and you did, even when you thought you were going to die.”

His mouth twisted. “But I broke my oath to Cersei, the queen, to keep that vow. I did tell you the first time we met that it was all too much. You hated me, then.”

“You hadn’t changed, yet.”

The small laugh that came out of his lips was humourless and bitter, and it cut Brienne inside. She felt mocked again, like in those early days when all he saw was an ugly, naive, stupid woman. She readjusted the grip on her sword and considered tackling him off his horse.

“Things don’t change. People don’t change,” Jaime said. “They’re exactly what they are and we just fool ourselves into believing they’re not.”

The words were hateful in his mouth, but not for her, she realised. Even then, moments ago it felt, in that courtyard where she was still crying alone, left behind, even then, the hate hadn’t been for her.

“You are a Lannister,” she said, “so is your brother, and your sister, and yet Cersei sits on the Iron Throne with no real claim to it. And your brother is the Hand of a Targaryen queen. And you, you are not the golden lion you were anymore. You are not that man anymore.” He opened his mouth to speak but she shut him up with a glare. “You’ve walked away from your sister because it was the right thing to do. Just like killing the mad king was the right thing to do. You fought alongside Starks and Unsullied and Targaryens and Dothrakis. Northmen that hated you. Because it was the right thing to do.”

“Brienne.”

“I am Ser Brienne of Tarth,” she said, and she leaned slightly to the side and grabbed his arm. “I am the only daughter of the Lord of Tarth and yet I serve Lady Sansa of Winterfell. I am a woman _and_ a knight, something that wasn’t possible until _you_ made it happen.”

Jaime looked her in the eyes. “You were always a knight,” he said, softly. “I only gave you the title.”

“I am a better knight for having met you.”

He swallowed thickly. This close, she could almost feel his breath on her face, could see it puff white out of his mouth. The cold was sharp and biting, but even like this, close but not as close as he could be or had been, as she wanted him to be, she could still feel his warmth. He would always be the warmest thing she’d ever touch, she thought. 

“You swore an oath,” she said, low, and shook his arm. “At the beginning. You swore to be brave. You swore to be just. You swore to protect the innocent.”

“And I’ve broken that oath many, many times,” he said, soft, head low on his shoulders with shame. Hateful men don’t feel shame, she wanted to tell him. 

“Then don’t break it again, not when it matters most.” 

Don’t go to your sister. Don’t join her in her doom, or help her be the person she’s chosen to be. You can change. You can be better. 

She would not beg for herself, though. She would not ask him to stay with her. Not again. 

Jaime’s shoulders shook and he brought his good hand to his face. Brienne let go of his arm and looked away. She didn’t know what else she could say, except for the one thing she hadn’t said and would not say. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, sheathed her sword and said,

“I will not keep you here any longer.”

Beside her, Jaime took a deep breath, then a second one. He was facing King’s Landing. She was facing Winterfell. Why was it that they always seemed to be heading in different directions? That even though they had seemed to finally have found a path they could both walk side by side, they were still right back here, in the moment where one of them had to leave—or chose to.

She had thought she could keep him this time. What a big idiot she was.

Only when he straightened back up on his horse, did she turn to look at him again.

“I still need to go to King’s Landing,” he said, and her eyes caught on his lips—she had been kissing them just a few hours ago—before the words sunk in, but when they did she had to look away once more. She would not beg again. She would not. “If I am to keep that vow,” he continued. “I _have_ to go.”

Something skipped in her chest and she was turning towards him before she knew what he really meant. He was looking ahead, into the night.

“They don’t know her like I do,” he said, more to himself, than to her. “They don’t know what she’s really like. What she’s willing to do, what she’s capable of. But I do. I have to see it through, Brienne. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if I can—“

She could see the lines of his face like this, his nose, his jaw. She had loved him for so long.

“Come back to Winterfell with me,” she said.

He hung his head. “I can’t. This place it—All I see are the abhorrent things I’ve done to it, to its people.”

She could argue with him that in the end he had saved it and all of them, but she was past arguing with him. “Just for the night. In the morning, I will speak to Lady Sansa, and I’ll go to King’s Landing with you.”

“Brienne.” And this time her name sounded like it sounded when it was just the two of them, in her bed, and nothing else mattered. She cleared her throat. Still she was standing in that courtyard, sobbing. But she closed her eyes for a moment and willed herself to look away from it. 

“I’ve taken an oath, too,” she said.

He shook his head, eyes wide with that expression in them it had taken her too long to understand was awe. For her. Even after all this time, she had a hard time not looking away. “You are—“ he started. “Why?”

She would not say it. Instead, she quirked her lips. “I remember a time when you jumped into a bear pit without a single weapon on yourself to save me. I still wonder sometimes what you expected to accomplish except getting eaten first and hoping the bear wouldn’t be hungry for me afterwards but… I’ve yet to repay that debt.”

“If what the raven’s message said is true, King’s Landing is going to be far worse than a bear pit,” he said, but he was turning his horse around so that they were again side by side, facing the same way.

“Well,” she said. “That’s why I have a sword.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is concluded for now, but who knows what will happen after I see the new episode on Sunday. Maybe there will me more stuff to fix... Or maybe I will have to take refuge in AUs where Jaime Lannister is a bestselling author obsessing over his bad reviews. Who knows!
> 
> Come see me on tumblr! I'm emjayelle there as well <3


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